Improvement in roasting, desulphurizing, and smelting ores



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JAMES D. VVHELPLEY AND JACOB J. STORER, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

IMPROVEMENT IN ROASTING, DESULPHURIZING, AND SMELTING ORESJSpecification forming part of Letters Patent N0. 58,012, dated September11, 1866.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, JAMES D. WHELP- LEY and JACOB J. STORER, of Boston,in the county of Suffolk and State of Massachusetts, have invented a newand useful Method for Using Auxiliary Chemicals in Metallurgic and otherChemical Processes and we do hereby declare that the following full,clear, and exact description of the construction and operation of thesame is sufiicient to enable others skilled in the arts to use andpractice our invention without other experiment and discovery.

In metallurgie operations, when it'is necessary to use fluxes orauxiliary chemicals, as in the smelting of iron, it is important thatevery particle of the ore should be brought into contact with a particleof the auxiliary chemicals in an atmosphere of heat. We do this byintroducing into the flame used in the mctallurgic process the auxiliarychemicals in a finely-pulverized state, either blowing them by the blastof the furnace, fanning them into the operating chamber, or droppingthem among the ores while highly heated, either in contact with carbonor its products when burned, or otherwise. By this method of using ourchemicals as auxiliary to aerial combustion we have developed someremarkable results. For instance, in the treatment of sulphurcts byroasting, when sulphurous acid is formed, said acid is converted intosulphuric acid it exhibited to certain forms of oxide of iron or copperor other protoxides in presence of heat, and' the oxide is also reduced; and by using a slight excess of oxide the complete conversion ofthe sulphurous acid may be effected.

By controlling the supply of finely-divided carbon thus introduced weproduce an oxidizing or a reducing flame at pleasure, and by use ofnitrate of soda or potassa as auxiliary chemicals, blown into the flame,we produce the most perfect oxidation possible.

Sulphur and phosphorus, silicon, and other foreign elements can becompletely removed from metals by roasting ores in a finely-dividedstate in an air-blast bearing fine coal in aerial combustion andpowdered fluxes either of the alkalies or alkaline earths; and by theaddition of such finely-powdered fluxes to floated coal in aerialcombustion contaminated with such impurities it is rendered as valuablefor metallurgic purposes as the best of coal.

Results such as we have described may be obtained measurably in areverberatory furnace by passing the reducing-flame, laden withfinely-powdered fluxes, over masses of ore, but are better obtained whenthe ore and auxiliary chemicals are together introduced in a pulverizedstate into a blast laden with finely-pulverized burning coal, as in ourfurnace and a process of our own recently patented.

These fluxes or auxiliary chemicals may be introduced into the blastbearin g coal in aerial combustion by the aid of steam, and this willsometimes be necessary when hydrogen is desirable as a reducing agentbut as Jacob J. Storers patents for the carrying of fluxes by steam forother uses are still extant We disclaim such ladin g of the steam withfluxes except when they are finely powdered and introduced asauxiliaries to metallurgic processes conducted by the aerial combustionof finelypowdered coal.

We believe that such introduction of auxiliary chemicals may becomevaluable in other chemical processes than metallurgic, but do notdesignate such processes at present, save the manufacture of sulphuricacid.

The word flux assumes that the reduction of an ore to metal is the soleobject sought for; but as in a furnace working this process thereduction of the ore frequently becomes only an incident, and theproduction of sulphuric acid or saline product or oxide a main result,we consider the expression auxiliary chemicals to include all extraneousmaterial except fuel used in the resolution of earths, ores, and naturalchemical compounds into salable products by the aid of heat; and

7e claim as our invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent- Theintroduction of finely-powdered chemical reagents floated on an air orsteam blast into an atmosphere of heat containing coal in aerial orair-borne combustion, substantially as and for the purpose described.

JAMES D. WHELPLEY. JACOB J. STOBER.

Witnesses Tnos. WM. CLARKE, CHARLES BATEMAW.

